She felt that what she was hearing could not be true.
“We will be happy – I know we will be happy!” the Marquis said almost violently. “I will make sure, my lovely one, that you will never regret allowing me to look after you and protect you from being insulted by men like the Comte.”
It flashed through Vilma’s mind that what the Marquis was suggesting was very much the same as what the Comte had offered her.
Her voice trembled as she asked,
“Are you really saying – that you – cannot marry me because – I am not – good enough for you?”
“It is not that,” the Marquis protested. “You are too good, too beautiful and too pure for any man. But, in my position as the Head of the Family, it is obligatory that ‘blue blood’ goes to ‘blue blood’. I cannot demean the family name that has been main
